The
great hue and cry for increased transparency in corporate financial reporting
following a series of accounting scandals and excesses has turned a bright
spotlight on the controversial issue of stock option expensing, or, more
to the point, the lack thereof.

Under current rules, companies are not required to account for the expense
associated with share-based compensation plans in their financial results.
But a growing number of investors, lawmakers and economists, including
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, have argued that companies
should reflect these expenses in their balance sheets in order to provide
a true picture of their financial health to shareholders.

Boeing announced July 22 it acquired an equity stake in Panthesis Inc.
and granted Panthesis an exclusive right to commercialize Boeing's Small-world
Wide Area Networking technology. SWAN technology was originally developed
by Boeing to allow multiple geographically dispersed people to conduct
collaborative meetings and engineering design reviews in real time. "SWAN
is a revolutionary technology that can be used to enhance numerous computing,
networking and communications functions," said Linda Magnotti, CEO of
Panthesis Inc., in a press release. "The sophisticated mathematics and
software architecture underlying SWAN technology can provide reliable
serverless communication for communities anywhere in the world."